Breaking News: Amazon & Whole Foods Redraw the Map

Photo Provided by Whole Foods Market®

Amazon’s Friday morning announcement that it is buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion has the potential to upend business-as-usual in the grocery industry and will certainly send its bricks-and-mortar competitors across the retail spectrum scrambling to get a handle on the ramifications. (A good Friday morning to you, Walmart and Target).

With Whole Foods and its national grocery distribution system onboard, Amazon’s online grocery play just got real serious. With a built DC infrastructure and 400+ Whole Foods serving as potential Amazon Fresh pickup locations, Amazon looks to have scored a win. The figure below leverages store-locations data from the Chain Store Guide’s Chain Supermarkets Locations database to map out Whole Foods’ built presence.

In addition, Whole Foods’ institutional knowledge base (CEO John Mackey will stay on with the company) and its appealing customer base, many of whom are sure to be existing Amazon Prime customers, bring real value to Amazon.

Mike joined Chain Store Guide in February 2016 as a data content editor and writer, bringing with him the extensive publishing, brand management and new-product development experience that he gained over the course of a decade with John Wiley & Sons publishers and the “For Dummies” brand in North America and the U.K. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Ball State University.